History

The first National Folk Festival was held on the weekend of February 11th and 12th, 1967.

It was organised by a committee comprised of members of the Victorian

Folk Music Club, Monash Traditional Music Society and the Burwood Teachers Folk Club along with the performers Martin Wyndham Read and Glen Tomasetti. The noted dancer and activist Shirley Andrews was chair, which may also explain why dance is is such a feature at the National! The grand sum of $100 was put forward as starting capital for the festival, which was to be known as the Port Phillip District Folk Music Festival. This was patterned on the Newport Folk Festival in the United States of America. It was to be held at the town of Kilmore in Victoria.

Two weeks before the Festival the organising committee realised a new venue had to be found in order to accommodate the large numbers of expected interstate visitors. However some communication difficulties with the town’s council saw them lose interest and at the last minute the festival was shifted back to Melbourne. In an oral history interview, Shirley Andrews tells how, in hat and gloves (to make a good impression), she went to see the principal of the Melbourne Teachers College to hire rooms. He agreed but, fearing folk dancers would be riotous, stipulated that police must be in attendance. Without a riot to quell, the police simply enjoyed the music. The crowd was so big and the event so popular that the performance rooms still weren’t big enough, forcing the dancers to appear upstairs and then immediately perform again downstairs for the flow-over crowd. This success spurred the committee to do it again the following year, but this time in the Pharmacy College in Royal Parade, Parkville. A more extensive version of this start can be found in Shirley’s own words at the Victorian Folk Music Club.

In 1969 a new tradition was started when the Festival was relocated to another state. For the next twenty years the Festival was held in a different state each year, with a new committee managing the organisation of the event. The Festival criss-crossed the country (see side bar for the full list of locations) bringing folk music and folk life to many people.

By the late 1980’s this style of event was becoming very difficult to manage for the organising folk federations in the respective states, as it was growing in popularity and complexity. Something needed to happen to make the event financially stable, and after Canberra in 1992 the Australian Folk Trust took over the Festival’s organisation and made provision for it to take place in Canberra each Easter with a stable management team and the following year the Festival began at it’s current home of EPIC. It was decided that the Festival would feature a different state each year to reflect the touring tradition of the event. Every year great efforts are made to reach a national audience and to uphold the traditions of the national festival. There might be a lot of technology at the concerts, but the heart and soul of the music is alive and well and continues the living tradition.

Read the Five year report to 1998 for more information.

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